Israel`s Raid On Plo Linked To Spy Suspect

December 04, 1985|By Jonathan Broder, Chicago Tribune.

JERUSALEM — Secret documents given Israel by accused spy Jonathan J. Pollard enabled Israeli warplanes to evade U.S. surveillance over the Mediterranean Sea during the Oct. 1 air strike against PLO headquarters in Tunis, government sources said Tuesday.

The sources also said Pollard had provided Israel with information on the exact location of the Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters, which was destroyed in the attack.

Arab states have accused the U.S. of complicity in the air raid that left more than 100 people dead and wounded. President Reagan initially termed the raid a ``legitimate act of self-defense,`` but the State Department later deplored the attack.

Details of the information Pollard is accused of supplying Israel could create deep embarrassment in Jerusalem in the wake of Israeli assertions that the documents dealt only with U.S. assessments of Arab and Israeli military capabilities and never compromised U.S. strategic matters. The FBI is demanding that Israel return any stolen documents that Pollard may have provided.

Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in a communique issued by the Government Press Office, called the reports about the Tunis documents ``total nonsense and totally incorrect.`` At the same time, the communique reminded all foreign correspondents in Israel that any dispatches dealing with the Pollard affair were subject to strict military censorship.

Meanwhile, U.S. Justice Department officials were expected to arrive here this week to question a senior official in the Prime Minister`s Office and two Israeli diplomats recently recalled from the U.S. in connection with the Pollard spy affair, Foreign Ministry officials said.

Government sources identified the senior official as Rafael Eytan, a former adviser on counterterrorism to Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir and reportedly the head of a secret intelligence unit that ran Pollard. The two diplomats are Ilan Ravid, deputy science attache at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and Yosef Yagur, science consul at the Israeli Consulate-General in New York.

Prime Minister Shimon Peres met with Eytan last weekend, persuaded him to cooperate with the U.S. investigation into the spy affair and conveyed Eytan`s consent to Secretary of State George Shultz in a telephone conversation early Sunday, the sources said.

Officials stressed, however, that Eytan and the two diplomats would not submit to ``interrogation`` by the Americans but had agreed simply to an

``interview.``

``This is certainly an option within the framework of full cooperation between Israel and the United States that we are committed to,`` said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ehud Gol. ``But whatever happens, it will take place as an interview and not an interrogation. There is a difference.``

Israel has publicly apologized for any connection it may have had with the spy affair and pledged to bring those responsible to account. Jerusalem also vowed to dismantle the special intelligence unit that apparently controlled Pollard and functioned outside the traditional Israeli intelligence community without the knowledge of political superiors.

Sources said Eytan, who suffers from severely impaired hearing and vision, would be retired from the government payroll for health reasons. His voluntary resignation, they said, would obviate the need for dismissals of other senior and middle-ranked officials.

The activities of the special unit Eytan ran have already been halted, the sources said.

It is feared that a round of dismissals over the spy affair may provoke a political free-for-all between the rival camps of Israel`s fractious coalition government, leading to more embarrassing disclosures and to the possible collapse of the Labor-Likud government.

In Washington Tuesday, a federal magistrate ordered Pollard`s wife, Anne Henderson-Pollard, held without bond pending grand jury action on charges of unauthorized possession of classified documents. Pollard, charged with espionage, is also being held without bond.